November 09, 2014

I 'm just kicking myself that I didn't come across this record prior to the elections last week, because I think this record could have turned the tide and resulted in something much better than what ended up happening last Tuesday.

This is a record out of Rockford, Illinois, apparently dating from 1968. This date is based on the introduction on side one of the single, by Samuel Shapiro, who introduces himself as the Governor of Illinois, a position he held for just under eight months, nearly all of that term in 1968.

The performer is Pete Quinto, and he certainly is gung-ho in his get-out-the-vote performance, particularly in the last chorus, when both he and the trombone player behind him get quite stirred up and exuberant.

I've also included the flip side, which is lacking the spoken introduction, and which appears to be an instrumental, until that final chorus, when the vocal comes in again.

August 17, 2014

Here’s an album with virtually no redeeming qualities. I say “virtually” because there is a argument to be made for making this sort of thing known, in an historical context, the same way we can use the written and filmed records of prior atrocities to be more aware of similar threats in our midst going forward.

Without that – or even with that “value” taken into consideration – this album is simply repugnant and vile. It came to its original owner, who lived in the deep south, in the early 1960’s, when it was produced. The people behind it called themselves the “Christian Votes and Buyers League”, but most people buying the album would likely have known that this was a front for the Ku Klux Klan.

Essentially, the first side of the record is a twenty minute screed, telling listeners how Kosher rules cause the price of your grocery items to become more expensive, and how to make sure to avoid these products and grocers. Along the way, you’ll hear that Dr. King’s activities were being directed behind the scenes by a Jewish cabal, among other obnoxious lies, the rest of which I’ll let you hear for yourself – although please be aware of just how creepy this entire endeavor is.

The album is narrated by Wally Butterworth, who was at one time a well known radio announcer and quiz show host. According to the brief outline on his Wikipedia page, it would appear that, like so many others, when things didn’t go his way (he lost a lawsuit and his radio platform) he seems to have made a hard turn to the right wing and joined organizations that supported his (and many other people’s) ideas that everything was someone else’s fault, especially the fault of those who didn’t look or think like him.

I’d like to think that this sort of thinking – and the more general group mindset behind it that led to these albums (and much more) would be behind us as a country, but sadly, that’s clearlynotthecase.

Rather than repeat anything else Wally has to say, I'll let him speak for himself:

That folksy “Goodbye, all” at the end, following nearly twenty minutes of hate, is, in context, among the creepiest things on the album.

I’m admittedly not as familiar with the issues that Butterworth gets into on the flip side of this album, but a quick web search indicates that it was about the move towards “one man, one vote”, in that era. Essentially, small towns and rural areas, at least in the south, were getting far more representation in Congress than the number of residents should have allowed. Some congressional districts had literally just hundreds of votes, while those in big cities might have had in the tens of thousands, meaning that the issues of the rural votes had much more pull than all of those other people in the big cities. Around the time of this album, some court decisions had resulted in that imbalanced system having been thrown out.

Now, it seems to me that changing extremely unbalanced representation into something approaching equal representation would be a no-brainer, but Wally Butterworth and his pals seem to see it as an assault on Apple Pie, Mom, Baseball, and the very center of their way of life. At one point, he makes it clear what the concern was: all of those minorities (racial and religious) that live in the cities would suddenly have electoral power that had been denied them, due to the God-given rights of the Rural White Protestants.

Nearly the sum and total of his “solution” seems to be for local jurisdictions to refuse to follow the courts’ decrees, and a cry to his fellow white southern men to rise up and resist the Gum’int’s evil plans to make sure everyone has an equal vote. Sheesh.

April 13, 2014

I've had a few requests for more tapes from the Army Doctor in Korea, a set of recordings from 1954 from which I've previously shared, in random order, two reels in a post from 2011, and two more in another post, about a year ago. At the moment, I can only put my hands on one more of these tapes, although I know there are several more in my catacombs, somewhere, and I will continue to share these if the interest continues.

This tape was made two days after one of the tapes shared a year ago, and the doctor's big news is his upcoming move to a new location within Korea, which doesn't appear to have been by his choice, and which he sounds decidedly unhappy about. Also of note is the story related at the start of side two of the tape, recounting why someone he knew sent him an actual U.S. dollar bill, and why such an item was not supposed to be among his possessions, a story which also touches on the religious practices of the locals in that time.

Comments appear to still be stuck on "closed" on this site, so if you have anything to say, feel free to write me at bpurse@gmail.com, and I'll update this posting with those comments.

February 02, 2014

The unusual, obscure and fascinating trips to my reel to reel collection, and the offbeat, unknown and one-of-a-kind records from the archives will wait until another day and another post.

My hero is gone.

Pete Seeger, 1919-2014.

For my money, the best singer ever recorded, and that I've ever heard anywhere. No one comes close. His voice was the purest expression of joy, or sadness, or anger, or righteous indignation, or whatever else was called for. In addition, his singing was a natural extension of his speaking voice, unadorned by any embellishment, misguided training or showboating, and that's exactly the sort of singing we don't have enough of today. HIs voice is pure emotion. His voice is the sound of America. His voice is the sound of life being lived well.

And not only that, Pete was without question in my mind, the most important American musician of the 20th century. I'm not saying that based solely on his songwriting or performances - I wouldn't try to support that statement. What I mean is - looking at any prominent musician of the century, and the totality of what each of them did, in all areas, musical or otherwise, again, no one comes close. He was one of the most important Americans of the century, period.

I could support those statements, if I had the time and the space - it would take (and has taken) a book. But instead, just a focus on one important moment from history, and then I have a few of my favorites from Pete's works below.

There is also a much more detailed version of this post, with nearly 20 samples from his career, in a post you can find here.

Before the music, a trip back in time to one of the pivotal events in Pete's life. While he kept up his professional career from 1955-1962 - Pete made at least five albums with the Weavers, and perhaps three dozen albums for Folkways, including hundreds of tracks recorded during that time, in addition to non-stop touring - he was, for that entire period, facing the wrath of the U.S. Government, including what seemed likely to be a likely prison term, essentially for refusing to reveal his private thoughts.

Indeed, the most significant moment of his life I can revisit is what happened when he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, to answer charges that he was a communist, among other things.

Many others had cowardly turned over names of friends and former friends to the committee, while even more had reasonably taken the Fifth, which had imperiled if not ended their careers. Pete took a riskier, and flat out ballsier step, one I don't believe anyone else took - he essentially pleaded the First Amendment, telling the panel that, as an American, he had the right to believe whatever he wanted to, and in addition, was entitled to be free from the need to be compelled to reveal those thoughts in such a situation as he was then in. Basically, he told the committee that, under the constitution, his beliefs were none of their business. In 1950's America, those were daring things to say. Read his entire testimony here - it is bracing.

And for this, facing the charges brought, he could have faced a decade in prison - he was actually found guilty and sentenced, although the ten counts of one year each were to be served concurrently - and was under the threat of this sentence for nearly half a decade. It's a good thing he didn't have to serve this term in prison, but a shame that the case was thrown out on a technicality, as it might have been (had it been decided correctly) a nice precedent to prevent or halt similar Congressional abuses in the future.

But all of that was going on while Pete toured the country, spreading the word that through music can come peace and brotherhood, and, not coincidentally, being the key figure in the flowering of the folk revival of that era in the process.

And now, a quick three song sampling of my favorite Seeger tracks, which, again, is greatly expanded on here.

Here's a recording from the Newport Folk Festival. To me, it is among the prime examples of Pete's ability to lead a crowd in group harmony - as he first encourages them to sing, then goes over each part, then, realizing it should be in a higher key, moves his capo before launching into an inspired rendition of "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep". The spoken opening is a great demonstration of how Pete's singing voice was just an extension of his way of speaking, and the moments here in which he sings a single high note over the harmonizing audience... well, that's something he often did, and it was always an amazing sound, rarely better than it is here.

From 1974, here's my second favorite Seeger track, a performance with his great friend Fred Hellerman on the folk standard "Banks of Marble". The track here, with banjo, guitar and piano, goes into a rolling rhythm, as their voices harmonize as in the old days, and they sing a song which is, sadly, yet to lose its meaning - it is as relevant today as when it was written, about 65 years ago. To quote a well known Seeger song: "when will we ever learn?".

And finally, the recording I consider not only Pete Seeger's finest moment, but one of the two or three greatest single tracks ever recorded. This is one of those perfect records that I could listen to multiple times a day without getting tired of it. It's found on an album recorded at the Weavers' reunion concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1963, but aside from some key instrumental backing from other members of the group (the double bass in particular is essential here), this is all Pete's show, or rather, Pete Seeger with an choir-by-audience numbering in the thousands.

Listen to how simply Pete suggests they sing with him, going into the second chorus, and how, by the end of the song, it's a towering massed vocal singing with him. It helps that Tom Paxton's "Ramblin' Boy" is an incomparable song, but the magic here is what Pete does with it, with his singularly wonderful voice and with the audience.

Thanks, Pete, for the myriad ways that you colored our lives, made it a more beautiful, musically vibrant world, help open our eyes to so many things, and worked to make America and the world a better place.

July 14, 2013

This year, I saw two Independence Day-themed exhibits, of
which it would be easy to categorize one as real and one as not, except that,
technically, both are “real.” Or maybe one is just as much a figment of
meaning-projection as the other. I can’t decide.

The first display was at the New York Public Library, which
was showing an original draft of the Declaration of Independence, as
written by Thomas Jefferson, along with one of the original 14 copies of the
proposed Bill of Rights. Both these documents are extremely rare, and the
Library has never exhibited them together before. Because they're so fragile,
they were on display for only three days, July 1–3.

I went to see them after work on
Tuesday, when the library was open late, and stood in line for 45 minutes,
which was totally worth it. It’s hard to write about the experience without
sounding like a Frank Capra film. The crowd was large and diverse, and
noticeably respectful. Even standing in line, everybody was polite and patient,
which is something I don’t recall ever experiencing in an NYC queue before. The
crowd fanned out once we were admitted to the room where the documents were in
three displays: Jefferson's two-sheet (front and back) Declaration, sandwiched
in glass inside two separate vitrines, so you could read all four pages; and
the large, printed Bill of Rights (one of only 14 original copies known to
exist) laid on a slanted backing inside another, much larger display case. Even
though people were allowed to crowd around the displays at will, there was no
bad behavior that I saw: Everyone waited patiently for their turn and looked as
long as they liked.

July 07, 2013

As the last hours of the festive Independence Day long weekend pass us by, here's an appropriate record for the holiday. It's a piece of patriotic drivel written by someone named Michael Quirk, and titled "Have You Thought About Freedom Lately?". Quirk himself recorded the piece at some point, and his version can be found a few places on the internet. But for this release (which the record label oddly shows to have a running time which is over a minute more than its true length), the artist is Eddie Paul:

June 18, 2013

You know how whenever anyone brings up the topic of US sonic
weapons and music torture, someone always says, “What do they do, just turn on
WFMU? Hahahahaha.” No? Maybe you hang out with smarter people than I do. On the
other hand, WFMU has always been a leader in the irritainment industry; some of
my favorite DJs, people I’ve been listening to for decades, do shows I’ve never been able to listen to all the way through.
So I got to wondering—what is on the
playlist when our government wants to break the will of its enemies? (“Enemies”
being defined in the broadest sense, of course, in that the term has included
US citizens minding their own business in their own homes.)

Manuel Noriega vs. Van
Halen: Noriega was Military Governor of Panama from 1984-89, when elections
were held with results he didn’t like. Also, he refused to help Oliver North
with the whole Nicaraguan Contra thing. (Noriega had been working with the CIA
since the 1950s.) Meanwhile, US troops stationed around the Panama Canal were conducting
a series of ludicrously named “operations,” and then a Marine Lieutenant got
killed, and then the US invaded, which was condemned as a flagrant violation of
international law by the UN. Noriega fled to the Vatican embassy in Panama City,
where US troops laid siege in Operation Nifty Package. (I am not kidding about
that name.) They stood around outside playing high-volume rock music,
specifically the Van Halen song “Panama.” A week later, Noriega surrendered.

June 11, 2013

Last night I saw Pussy
Riot: A Punk Prayer, and now I’m convinced that Pussy Riot should be in
jail, which I think was not the filmmakers’ intent.

The video shows three strong feminist women and their
history of activism, culminating in their action in Moscow’s Cathedral of
Christ the Savior. The three who were arrested—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria
Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich— are not the only members of their political
collective, although you wouldn’t know that from the film. They also are not
“girls,” they are young women in their mid-20s and early 30s, they are wives
and mothers, they are educated and intelligent enough to have devised an
ideological basis for their political protest. Yet since their arrests, they’ve
been portrayed as “girls” who “didn’t realize” that defiling a revered place of
worship would offend anyone, which is complete bullshit: The whole point of the
action was to offend as many people as possible. If people weren’t offended,
they wouldn’t pay attention. Well, they’re paying attention now; they’re paying
attention all over the world.

The women of Pussy Riot must have realized there were likely
consequences for their actions. Just as Edward Snowden was prepared to accept
the loss of his well-paid job, the end of his comfy life, and his possible
extradition to the US to face treason charges, so Pussy Riot should have been
prepared for arrest, trial, and conviction. They say they are feminists: Let
them act like feminists. Their prison sentences are the proof of everything
they’ve said about Russian repression. Let them take the consequence of their
actions like strong feminist women, not disingenuous, apologetic little girls.
In the words of Sammy Davis Jr. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the
time.”

Be punk, Pussy Riot: Be strong.

UPDATE 6/18: So what I was trying to say was unclear, and that is the fault of my writing. Mostly I was objecting to the documentary's portrayal of "girls," but also there's the rather alarming footage of the three prisoners apologizing and saying they "didn't mean to offend anyone." This is contrary to their otherwise strong statements--contrary, in fact, to their actions. The obvious injustice of two years in prison for their protest is what has called international attention to the very repression they were protesting. I have friends who participated in ACT UP's protest inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989; no one went to prison, but it brought international attention to the AIDS crisis and forced the government to begin dealing with it. I hope Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer will turn out to be as influential. Also, one week on, Edward Snowden looks less like a hero. -B.

May 26, 2013

Well, last time around, I shared a 1960's record brought to us by the right wing zealots over at Key Records, and that got me to thinking about this insane reel of tape I came across years and years ago, featuring the exceptionally obnoxious ramblings of Revilo P. Oliver. Mr. Oliver (who said that being named palindromically was a family tradition), was notable for being a white supremacist and a founding member of both the National Review and of The John Birch Society.

That's enough to peg him as a fringe-dweller right there, but Revilo (and I wish it was pronounced like "Revile" - a feeling which he inspires in me - but I think the accent is on the first syllable) later decided that 1960's American conservatism was just too liberal, and he joined the National Alliance - part of the National Socialist movement - that's right, Neo-Nazis.

The tape features two lengthy lectures, each about an hour long. His main focus seems to be on simply expressing a smug superiority, never really saying too much about what his beliefs are, but rather spewing insults, simplifying and misrepresenting the views of those he considers vermin (i.e. anyone who isn't Western, Caucasian, or who doesn't agree with him), and giving lengthy examples of idiocy on the part of specific individuals, which somehow are meant to indict everyone on the other side of whatever issue he's on about.

There is so much gold here, it's hard to know where to start, but I did find two statements quite telling. The first is when he just sort of states, as fact (and in passing) that the only civilization that matters is the one "that we, the white men of the Western Hemisphere, created". And the second is when he actually says, in reference to what he called the "baneful" effects of slavery, adds that the worst of these baneful effects were on the owners.

Hold on your hats, wigs and keys, ladies and gentlemen, and have a listen to a first class wacko, Dr. Revilo P. Oliver:

Listening to his rants, I find myself wondering - if ol' Revilo were still around today, would he realize that much of the progress that has been made over the last 30 years has been developed, improved and made ubiquitous by the more progressive humans of this era, and that many of the biggest problems on Earth during that period have come from the tyrants, the religiously intolerant and other representatives of the far right?

But then I think of Revilo P. Oliver's political descendants (in the Tea Party and their ilk), and recognize that even they have failed to perceive those developments - so I assume that Oliver wouldn't have noticed, either.

I bet I have close to a dozen Key releases down in my "spoken word" section, in the basement, of which my favorite, and yet also the most depressing, may well be the one Mindwrecker already shared, by Walter Brennan.

But here another prime example, an album featuring a speech by Dan Smoot, publisher of The Smoot Report, in which he extols the virtues of Mr. D. B. Lewis, who was a manufacturer of pet foods. (Smoot, it would seem, was a true believer. Not only was he associated with the Birchers, I learn from Wikipedia that he later went on to oppose George H.W. Bush's candidacy for the U.S. Senate on the grounds that Bush's positions were essentially those of a Democrat!)

It's amazing to hear, in this speech, which took place at some point during the run-up to the 1964 election, the same rhetoric, the same ideas, and in places, close to the same slogans, as those espoused in recent years by members of the tea party and its offshoots. Time, it's sad to say, doesn't do away with all bad ideas - "those who cannot remember the past..." and all that, I guess.

If anyone is interested, there could certainly be more Key Records mayhem to come!

March 24, 2013

Occam’s Razor teaches us that the simplest answer is usually the correct one, but try telling that to a dedicated conspiracy theorist. It’s not that life isn’t complicated, or that crazy things don’t happen, but a simple explanation (Oswald Shot Kennedy, a weather balloon crashed at Roswell) is mathematically far more likely than one involving vast sinister cabals and little green men. The persistent tabloid-fueled belief that Elvis Presley did not in fact die on August 16, 1977 is no different. The simple explanation for what happened that day is that years of stress, health problems and raging pill addiction finally caught up with the iconic rock star in the form of a massive heart attack in his Memphis bathroom. The complicated explanation could, honestly, be just about anything (time-travelling ninjas), but the most commonly circulated is the one put forth in the amazing 1990 home video The Elvis Files, that Presley’s “death” was actually an elaborate hoax perpetrated, kind of half-assedly, by the United States government.

The hour-long special is hosted by none other than Bill Bixby, best remembered for playing Bruce Banner to Lou Ferrigno’s Incredible Hulk on the late 70s/early 80s TV series (technically, he played “David Banner”, they changed it because CBS thought “Bruce” was too gay). Bixby was a natural choice for the job since he had actually starred alongside Presley in two of his movies, 1967’s Clambake and1968’s Speedway, and

March 04, 2013

Congressional Republican economy terrorists have been
holding the country hostage for a while now—Sequester! Fiscal Cliff! Debt
Ceiling! Meet All Our Crazypants Demands or We’ll Blame Obama!—and people who
don’t enjoy negotiating with terrorists have been looking for a way around
dealing with them. How can we keep paying our bills if there’s no money in the
bank? Well, one obvious way would be to print some more money.

Technically, the Government can’t print more money, but the Federal Reserve can. (They are not the same thing
and if you don’t know this, that is because you are not a nutbucket conspiracy
theorist like me. Most normal people do not know how the Fed works.) BUT: Back
in 2011, a Constitutional law professor at Yale started talking about an idea
to take advantage of the one way in which the Government can mint more money: commemorative coins! The Secretary of the
Treasury is allowed (31 USC § 5112!) to strike platinum
coins in any denomination. So all the Secretary of the Treasury has to do is to
mint two one-trillion-dollar platinum coins, deposit them with the Federal
Reserve, and hey presto! It’s all good. (And go to hell, Repubican
economy terrorists.)

The trillion-dollar-coin idea started being talked up again
a couple months ago, as the Sequester approached, and it was even endorsed by
some Celebrity Economists, but in the end Jacob Lew was confirmed as the new
Secretary of the Treasury and even if he tried to issue The Coin, no one can
read his handwriting and the Treasury would probably just issue a couple of
platinum Slinkys instead.

Still, I do believe we could apply the trillion-dollar-coin principle
to raising money to support WFMU.
When Former Cohost Jay and I decided to
produce our own Thunk Tank currency (the Bieb, the official currency of
Iceland!) we discovered that it is illegal for anyone but the Government to
issue specie (coins), but anyone can issue paper money. (So we did.)
Why should we continue with the annual Marathon and the Record Fair and the
Secret Off-Air October fundraiser and the Superstorm Sandy Wrecked the Station
Special Appeal and Station Manager Ken in a Lawn Chair Attached to Weather Balloons, going back to the Listeners for their support again and again, just because
we’re a Listener-Supported station? (And God bless the Listeners, they have been
fantastic!)

All Station Manager Ken has to do is issue a 1-milion Bieb
note (which trades at a rate of 1 Bieb to 1 US dollar), deposit the note in the
WFMU bank account, and then pay all our bills! (Or just deposit 10,000 100-Bieb
notes, because I think there are plenty of them lying around the station from Thunk
Tank’s overproduced Marathon premiums.) Assuming the bank that has the WFMU
bank account will accept it for deposit, which maybe they will not.

Alas, the one- trillion-dollar coin is not to be. The main
problem seems to have been that it would have called attention to the fact that
our entire economy is based on the fiction of fiat currency and debt. So I will
never be able to add the Biden Commemorative $1 trillion dubloon to my
collection, and I also still have never got a Guam quarter, either, so what’s
up with that? You can still use your Federal Reserve-issued currency to support WFMU, though, so go to wfmu.org and make your pledge now.

Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and thanks for supporting WFMU.

November 10, 2012

I had an itch to post this during the final weeks of the presidential race, but due to the record's rather hateful (but hilarious) far-right conservative script (as read by one of my record-collecting faves Walter Brennan) I elected to wait and see how the chips fell before I dove in. Since the reptilian/humanoid candidate lost we'll now present side one of this rare little gem. Again, one of those discs that I've been DJ'ing bits of for a LONG time and I'm glad to share it in its entirety (well, side one this time anyhoo).

As written by Vick Knight in the early 1960's for Key Records (who I'd like to know more about), it spends two full sides tearing down the LBJ administration and its 'terribly destructive' policies carried over from the Kennedy years. I got quite a shock when I first bought this and heard Mr. Good-Time Ol' Farmer Guy using his normal voice for a change and ripping savagely into anything remotely resembling liberal government policies. The stark cover also struck
me as quite attractive as well.

Both sides of the lp are continuous, so I broke it into eight parts when I ripped it to digital years ago, for easier DJ'ing and listening. So buckle up and hear a side of Mr. Brennan that you may not have heard before.

October 28, 2012

This week, I went digging around in the corner of the catacombs where I keep stacks of radio ads and PSA's, and dug up a batch of 20-30 year old spots, on four different tapes, which are from a variety of very different times and places.

First up, four 1981 PSA's from the US Customs service, two featuring the dulcet tones of Lorne Greene, and two featuring (a less-than-involved) sounding country singer Terri Gibbs:

Here are three ads from Computerland, with bargains that can hardly be believed: Imagine saving $400 on your purchase of an IBM computer, with enhanced keyboard, DOS and 640 K of RAM, all for only $1999! Where do I sign up????

Next up, a dozen ads, in a variety of lengths and styles, telling people about the 1982 Tax Filing Season, and the things you might want to know. You'll hear from Lyle Waggoner, Fernando Lamas, Mason Adams, Michael Warren, James Gregory, Anthony Geary and Sarah Purcell, from a recent retiree and from a snooty aunt, among others:

I've saved the best/weirdest/most unexpected for last. When I saw "Land-O-Lakes" on the box, I initially thought it would contain butter or other dairy ads. Not quite, as a closer look at the box indicated (although the box indicates only four ads). This set of eleven ads is from the Land-O-Lakes Co-Op, and feature ads for a variety of products to help your pigs, hogs, calves, cows, and other farm issues. There's some good listening here!:

September 16, 2012

As befits the future Savior of Humanity (or at least the
Savior of Blonde Russian Gymnasts in the Duma), Vladimir Putin has been
extremely busy this past summer. One of his major tasks has involved recruiting
new members of the Putin Pals, his protective managerie of super-powered animal
agents. Thunk Tank Cohost Jay and I often wondered why it was that the Putin
Pals did not have any bird members, when their primary mission will be to
defeat the insect forces of MANTIS.
How is it that Putin would recruit a Were-Whale before he’d got even one bird?
(Anuka, the Flying Donkey,
does not count as a bird, because: Legs. Hooves. Hair. Mammal.) Naturally, the
Leader was just waiting until the time was ripe, and this summer he finally
judged time to be squooshy and soft enough to unveil his Craneforce.
Dressing in the uniform of a Crane Obergruppenfuhrer—sort of a white hazmat jumpsuit with weird
black goggles—Putin jumped aboard Craneforce One and led the baby cranes on skywriting
maneuvers high in the sky above Moscow, where they wrote “Surrender, Pussy
Riot!” in smoke, and also in Russian, not English. And Cyrillic. Cyrillic
letters are really hard to make in smoke, but of course Putin enjoys the
challenge.

August 04, 2012

Beyond a few broad, core truths (the Nazis are Evil, the Axis are a Threat), propaganda is by its very nature filled with falsehoods, exaggerations, and lies. It reveals far more about the country that created it than its actual target. In the following cartoons, which cast the most popular animated characters of the time into situations both comic and nightmarish, the concerns of World War II America are laid bare: it's scared, defiant, and strangely obsessed.

Wrath

During a parable about the idiocy of signing a non-aggression pact with a man who is a wolf AND a Nazi, the Three Little Pigs run into the eldest pig’s house, which is made out of bricks and heavy cannons. There’s a sign on the door which says: “No Dogs Allowed”, except “Dogs” has been crossed out and

August 01, 2012

Mitt Romney, former head of bribery-ridden Salt Lake City Olympics 2002, started off his Big World Diplomacy Tour (Three Whole Other Countries!) by pissing off his first hosts so much that the Prime Minister of England dissed him in public. Score!

Then there was the Opening Ceremony. You’d think Mittens would have liked that Opening Ceremony, with its salute to the Poors Who Knew Their Place back in the England of the Industrial Revolution. The part he probably would not have liked was the part we didn’t get to see here in the US—the tribute to the victims of the 7/7 attacks. London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics on July 6, 2005, and on the next day terrorists detonated four bombs on London subways and a bus, killing 52 non-terrorists and wounding 700. The two events are linked in people’s minds, and the ceremony featured a moving version of the hymn “Abide with Me” sung by Emeli Sande, and a dance choreographed by Akram Khan. I couldn’t figure out why NBC cut this part of the program to run some stupid interview with Ryan Seacrest and Michael Phelps—which they reran the other night!— because I thought the point of American news media was to keep us in a constant state of fear about terrorism, and wouldn’t a tribute to terror victims help with that? But then the next day NBC said they cut the tribute because it “wasn’t tailored for the US audience.” So now I know that the main goal of American media isn’t to keep us frightened, it’s to keep us ignorant.

July 17, 2012

Not always, actually quite seldom, is the distinction between art and absurdity a relevant one. And it certainly doesn’t matter when in a TV show you combine live music, in-studio party, fancy dress, videotapes, punk, disco, anarchism, new wave, visual arts, rap, interviews, phone-in sessions, shaky camera angles, crude advertising and live drug taking. All this featuring guests such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Lurie, David Byrne, George Clinton, Fab Five Freddy, Tuxedo Moon, Debbie Harry, Maripol, Iggy Pop, Chris Burden, John Feckner just to name a few. The uniqueness of TV Party, however, was not as a celebration of the apotheosis of the underground, but that this played out on the mass media it rebelled against.

On air for one hour every Tuesday night from 1978 to 1982, TV Party was a piece of DIY experimental broadcasting hosted and conceived by Glenn O’Brien. It pioneered an alternative use of the medium, breaking its rules by looking deliberately amateur and shattering the traditional distinction between the

July 11, 2012

Kim Jong Un has a girlfriend! Or maybe a wife! Or maybe a girlfriend who is somebody else’s wife! No one at Thunk Tank Central (or anywhere else) is really sure. But last weekend he was seen in public with a young woman. Who was she?

Korea Joongang Daily says that South Korean intelligence has identified her as Hyon Song-wol, former lead singer for the Bochonbo Electronic Music Band. Hot gossip: KJU might have had an affair with her when he returned home from his Swiss boarding school. His father, Kim Jong Il, may have objected to the (still unconfirmed that it ever happened) relationship and separated the two. Song-wol might have married an army officer! She might have had a baby! But whose baby was it?

If, you know, there even was a baby. Or if the woman in the photos with Kim Jong Un isn’t just his sister, which it might be. Whatever! Here’s the video for Hyon Song-wol’s #1 super hit from 2005, Excellent Horse-Like Woman!